Beautiful Assassin (30 page)

“I can, sir,” I replied.

He looked me over dubiously, then shoved the Mosin-Nagant rifle at me.

“Let’s see what you can do, Comrade,” he said.

“What would you like me to shoot, sir?”

We happened to be passing a farmer’s field with a cow grazing in it.

“Shoot that fucking cow.”

“The cow, sir?”

“Yes.”

It seemed to me a frivolous waste. Worse, a shameful thing to do.
The farmer would need that cow to survive, especially now. But it was a good lesson to learn about war—that reason and common sense and notions of right and wrong were the first casualties. So I chambered a round, aimed, pictured the cow a Messerschmitt coming in low, and fired. The cow keeled over and dropped to the ground. I turned to the commissar and handed him back the gun.

He smiled at me again, impressed. “Do the same with the Germans.”

During the day, I remember looking out the slats in the side of the car as the countryside sped by, at cattle grazing and fields of grain, long, narrow sections of blue summer skies. Here, the earth didn’t give the slightest hint that war had begun, that the world as we’d known it had already changed forever. I remembered thinking about Kolya. How I almost envied him, his not knowing about our daughter. For him, she was still a memory of unsullied bliss.

After several days we could hear a faint rumble coming from the east, one that grew louder and louder as we sped forward. At one point Stukas, their distinctive high-pitched whine rending the air, descended on us, strafing us with machine-gun fire. Several soldiers were killed before they’d even gotten out of the train. Finally we stopped and fell out. Only every third solider was handed a rifle. The unspoken assumption being that those with rifles would soon be killed and the others would be there to take up their weapons. The commissar with the shaggy mustache pointed to me and said to the man handing out rifles, “Make sure she gets one.”

My regiment was force-marched fifteen kilometers to the Prut River where we were told to dig trenches as bombs exploded all around us. We were all green, all afraid. Even I, who’d thought herself so ready to sacrifice her life for revenge, felt my hands trembling, my stomach knotting with the explosions of the enemy bombs. Despite my sacred anger, I was scared. Across the river the enemy waited, five well-equipped, battle-hardened German divisions along with another dozen Romanian ones. Then their Luftwaffe buzzed overhead, dropping bombs on our position. None of us had any idea what war would be like. I kept wondering if the officer back at the recruiting station had been right after all, that I should have signed up to be a nurse. Certainly shooting a
target wouldn’t be anything like shooting a real live human being, even a German. When the time came, despite my hatred for the krauts, I wondered if I could actually pull the trigger and kill a man.

Two days later I would get my answer. Ironically, my first kill wasn’t a German but a Romanian who was shaving out of his helmet. He was sitting on the far side of the river, behind what was left of a shed. Evidently he thought he was protected, wasn’t in the line of fire. Turned sideways, he’d cut himself with the razor just beneath his right ear. I sighted him in, put the man’s ear in my crosshairs. However, I hesitated before pulling the trigger. My heart beat faster, my stomach in knots. I felt my hands begin to shake. He was, after all, a person, someone with feelings and a past, loved ones as had I. I realized that this was not going to be anything like shooting a paper target. I found I had to talk myself into it. He is the enemy, I told myself. He’s responsible for Masha’s death. The bullet caught him at the hairline above his ear. His head exploded. I felt suddenly sick, and I remember leaning over and retching right there in the trench. That was all right, though. Many men became sick with their first experience at killing. Yet I wouldn’t permit myself to cry. I didn’t want anyone to see such “womanly” behavior. I’m not sure if I felt bad for the man I’d killed or for my daughter. Or perhaps I was feeling sorry for myself, because of what I sensed, even at that moment, the war had done to me. How it would forever alter me.

T
he next morning I rose early and, as Vasilyev had requested, prepared a few words to say at the conference. What I wrote was not, I must say, very original, just the sort of clichés that I thought he wanted from me. About Soviet morale and how the tide of victory was turning, etc., etc. As I wrote, I found myself glancing at the envelope that sat on my writing table, the one that Mr. White—
yurist
—had given me the previous night. Finally I picked it up and glanced at it. What was in it? I wondered. What secret intrigues were Vasilyev and his
chekist
cronies up to, and what were they getting me involved in? I had a strange urge to open the envelope, to see for myself.

But a knock interrupted my writing. Opening the door, I found the woman I’d met at dinner standing there. Miss Hickok. She was solidly built, with broad shoulders, a sharp nose, and eyes that sparkled playfully. She had on slacks and a short-sleeve blouse, exposing muscular forearms that looked as if they’d once milked cows. I was surprised to see her here so early but then remembered her telling me that she actually lived in the White House.

“
Dobroye utro,
” she attempted in Russian.

I smiled at her “good morning” and replied in turn.

She said something in English, then reached out and offered her hand. I followed her upstairs to a room on the top floor, a sunroom,
bright and airy. There Mrs. Roosevelt and Captain Taylor were already seated at breakfast.

“Good morning,” Mrs. Roosevelt said by way of the captain.

“Good morning,” I replied in English.

The captain then greeted me. I noticed that his eyes appeared somewhat bleary, as if he’d stayed up all night translating very small print.

“Would you care for some tea?” Mrs. Roosevelt asked.

“Please,” I replied.

I sat across from her, while Captain Taylor sat to my left.

“How did you sleep?” Mrs. Roosevelt inquired of me.

“Very well, thank you,” I replied.

The room afforded a spectacular view of the city. To the south loomed the tall obelisk of the Washington Monument, gleaming palely like a majestic god in the sunlight. Beyond, the city stretched out, muscular, green, and lush, with lingering pockets of mist sprinkled here and there. The scene appeared tranquil, almost bucolic, like something out of a painting by Turner. I still found it hard to believe that not a single German bomb had found its way to American soil, that here people could go freely about their lives without looking skyward for the high-pitched screech of Stukas.

“Look,” Mrs. Roosevelt said, handing me a newspaper. “You’ve made the front page of the
New York Times,
my dear.”

Indeed, there I was, standing between Ambassador Litvinov and Vasilyev at the press conference the previous day. The photo made me look startled, wide-eyed, like some captured wild animal.

“The
Times,
” the captain added, “is the most important paper in the States. It’s read by millions.”

Above the photo was a headline.

“What does it say?” I inquired of Captain Taylor.

He smiled sheepishly, one front tooth snagging on his fleshy lower lip. “‘Beautiful Assassin Enjoys Killing Nazis.’”

I felt a little embarrassed at this. “I wish they wouldn’t call me that foolish name,” I said.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Lieutenant,” replied Mrs. Roosevelt with a grin.

“But they make me sound like a cold-blooded killer.”

“I don’t know how it is in your country, Lieutenant,” explained Mrs. Roosevelt. “But here sometimes reporters twist things to sell papers.” She glanced across at Miss Hickok.

“We journalists are a disreputable bunch, is what she means,” added Hickok, her mouth screwed up into a grin. “We should all be taken out and horsewhipped.”

“What else do they say?” I asked.

The captain went ahead and translated the accompanying article for me.

“They think I resemble a man?” I asked the captain, self-consciously running my hand through my hair.

“Nonsense,” snapped Hickok. “I think you look quite dashing in your uniform, Lieutenant.” Her voice was loud and raspy, and she spoke so quickly the captain had a little trouble keeping up with her. “Men,” she scoffed. “They only care about what a woman looks like. Not what she thinks or what she accomplishes.”

“What did you expect?” Mrs. Roosevelt replied offhandedly, buttering a slice of toast.

“Why, she’s a war hero, Ellie, and they’re treating her like she’s Shirley Temple!”

“Don’t knock our Miss Temple,” Mrs. Roosevelt quipped lightly. “She’s selling plenty of war bonds.”

“I’m serious.”

“Don’t get yourself all worked up, Hick,” the First Lady said familiarly. She kept referring to her friend as Hick. “It’s too lovely a day.”

“They have the gall to criticize this brave woman,” Miss Hickok continued, “and the whole bloody lot of them don’t have the courage she has in her little finger.”

“I know, I know,” Mrs. Roosevelt said, trying to placate the woman. “But the article did say some nice things about her too.”

“What? Referring to her as ‘a mere girl,’” her friend scoffed, shaking her head. “How are things ever going to change with such backward notions?”

Mrs. Roosevelt glanced across the table at me and winked. “As you can see, Lieutenant, Hick has very strong opinions on the subject of women’s equality.”

“Men are such jackasses,” the woman pronounced.

As he translated this last line, the captain smiled good-naturedly at me.

“Certainly you don’t mean to include our nice Captain Taylor in that group, do you?” Mrs. Roosevelt offered.

Hickok glanced over at the captain and smiled. “No offense, Captain.”

“None taken,” he replied, returning the smile to show he held no hard
feelings. Somehow during all of this, he had managed to continue translating. He was a very skilled translator. In fact, during my stay with Mrs. Roosevelt, sometimes I would almost forget he was there with us, listening to our conversations, passing on what we said. For long periods of time he seemed to fade into the background, become a mere conduit for the words of others. He was there in the way a waiter at an elegant restaurant was there, ready to serve but almost invisible. In the days and weeks that followed, Mrs. Roosevelt and I would come to share the most intimate details of our lives, and there would be the captain, our go-between, the one who transmitted our thoughts and feelings to the other.

“Well, I wouldn’t pay it any mind,” Mrs. Roosevelt said philosophically to her friend. “The important thing is that they’ve recognized her. That’s a big step. Would you care for some more tea, Lieutenant?”

“Well, it’s certainly extraordinary what you’ve done for the status of women,” said Mrs. Roosevelt’s friend.

“Thank you, Miss Hickok—”

I remembered that occasion in the trenches, arguing the same point with Zoya. How what we did in the war would change things for women afterward in the Soviet Union. How it would pave the way for better opportunities, more equal treatment. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure.

“Ellie, what was that line you wrote a few years back, about women being shot at?”

“I said that women who are willing to be leaders must stand out and be prepared to be shot at,” replied Mrs. Roosevelt.

“Well, I’d say you’ve certainly been shot at, Lieutenant,” Miss Hickok said with a raspy laugh.

“I must confess I wasn’t thinking such lofty thoughts when I enlisted,” I replied. “It was mostly out of revenge, a hatred for the Germans.”

I glanced across at Mrs. Roosevelt as I said this. I could tell by her expression that she was thinking of our conversation the previous night. About what I’d told her concerning my daughter.

“What was her name again?” asked Mrs. Roosevelt.

“Mariya,” I said. “But we called her Masha.”

Mrs. Roosevelt shook her head. “I’m a peace-loving person by nature. But I think such a thing would fill me with sanguinary thoughts too.”

As the captain translated this, he stared curiously at me, not following our conversation.

“We all of us, Lieutenant,” Mrs. Roosevelt said, “have our private motivations for doing public good. And, Lord knows, many times they are not very noble reasons. But as Franklin is always reminding me, it’s the end result that counts. Whatever the reasons for your bravery, everyone in the world—men and women—are supremely grateful for it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“
Life
magazine wants me to write a feature story on you, Lieutenant,” said Hick.

“That’s a splendid idea,” added Mrs. Roosevelt. “I think she’s just what American women need to see.”

Hick then made inquiries about my life, what I wanted to do after the war, about my poetry. Though she was a bit gruff and opinionated, I liked her. Her confidence. Her independence. The way she was unafraid to speak bluntly, not mince words. I was also struck by the familiar, even intimate way she acted with Mrs. Roosevelt, as if they were best friends from childhood. Once I happened to glance up and catch a look pass between the two. It was the sort of easy, familiar look that sisters might exchange.

“I know that Franklin enjoyed his little chat with you last night, Lieutenant,” Mrs. Roosevelt said. “He was quite taken by you. He spoke of your directness.”

I was reminded of what Vasilyev had asked me to do. I debated with myself for a moment, then decided it was just a small thing. What harm would it do? Besides, I was a soldier and was only doing my duty. “Your husband is a great friend to my country, Mrs. Roosevelt. We only hope that he remains in office.”

“I, on the other hand, pray that he doesn’t,” she said with a frustrated laugh.

“You don’t wish him to be president anymore?” I asked.

“It has certainly been a drain on his health.”

She then glanced at her friend. “It’s been a drain on you as well,” Miss Hickok replied. Turning toward me she added, “Ellie would very much like to get back to her own life. It’s been on hold for a dozen years.”

“I never minded,” Mrs. Roosevelt explained. “I have always supported Franklin’s ambitions.”

“But it’s time to support your own,” the other woman said. “You know all the things you’d like to accomplish. Instead of having tea parties, for goodness sakes.”

I looked from one to the other.

“So he does
not
plan to run again for office?” I asked.

But just then Mrs. Roosevelt’s aide, Miss Thompson, entered the room and spoke to the First Lady. Mrs. Roosevelt said something to Hick, and the two stood.

“They’re sending a car for you, Lieutenant,” she said. “I have some things to attend to before the conference. I shall see you there.”

After they were gone, Captain Taylor and I sat in awkward silence for a moment. Despite the fact that we spoke the same language, I felt suddenly uncomfortable with just him there. I found myself spinning my teacup in the saucer, just for something to do with my hands.

Soon, though, the captain asked, “Who’s Masha?”

“My daughter,” I replied.

“But you used the past tense.”

“Yes.” I said, glancing across at him. “She died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you, Captain,” I replied.

“Is that why you hate the Germans so much?”

“I suppose the war became something very personal for me. For a long time I did enjoy killing them, just like they said in the article. I’m almost ashamed of admitting that now.”

“That’s understandable, Lieutenant. How old was your daughter?”

“Three. Just a baby still.”

I don’t know why, but I reached into my pocket, took out the leather case, and removed the photo of my daughter.

“That’s her. Masha,” I explained.

“She’s very pretty. I can see the resemblance,” he said, looking from the photo to me. “Is that your husband?”

“Yes.”

“When was he killed?”

For a moment I wanted to tell him the truth, that he wasn’t dead, at least not officially, just missing. But then I figured I didn’t want it getting back to Vasilyev that I had disobeyed his orders, however silly I thought them to be.

“A month ago I received the letter,” I said. Hoping to change the conversation, I asked, “Do you have children, Captain?”

“Me,” he said with a startled laugh. “No. I’m not married.”

“A girlfriend perhaps?”

He shook his head. “I was engaged.”

“What happened, if it’s not too forward of me to ask?”